1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to the field of personal grooming devices. More particularly, it pertains to nail clippers and to a novel attachment thereto for making their use easier and more accurate.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Humans possess a flattened, elastic structure of a horny texture located on the dorsal surface of the terminal phalanges of the fingers and toes, commonly referred to as "nails". While nature may have historically held nails to some important capacity, modernly, they are the subject of personal grooming and, at the very least, must be kept trimmed to a reasonable length. Often women adorn them with paints of different colors and/or mount sparkling jewelry on them to attract men.
Nail trimming can be accomplished with a wide variety of implements, from the disgusting habit of biting them to the humorous practice of clipping them with large shears, such as done by L'il Abner, a cartoon character of historical fame. For many years, the bulk of nail trimming has been done with the use of what is known as nail clippers.
Nail clippers are most frequently held between the thumb and the phalange of the second row of the index finger and squeezed together to trim the anterior extremity or free edge of the nail. While they are held at a right angle to the phalange of the second row of the index finger, the divergent ends are squeezed together to bring the cutting blades against the nail from above and below. While most adults can operate clippers in this manner, using the phalange of the second row of the index finger brings about a certain amount of instability in that neither the thumb nor the index finger holds the clippers in a fixed direction so that it tends to flop about. With older children and most adults, some stability is achieved by temporarily pressing the jaws of the clippers against the end of the finger, adjacent the nail to be trimmed, to provide three-point, more stable, three-point positioning. However, with infants and in unsettling environments, such as in a moving car or boat, the clippers cannot be held with sufficient stability to accurately trim one's nails. The result may be a poorly trimmed nail or a cut in the skin at the tip of the finger.
The prior art has attempted to provide stability to the common nail clippers by adding refinements to the ends of the clippers, such as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,744,131; 3,997,996; 5,052,416 and U.S. Pat. No. Des. 266,480. Other changes are added in the area of the cutting blades, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,196,514. For the most part, these inventions utilize elements that require the clippers to continue to be held between the thumb and the phalange of the second row of the index finger with the phalange and the thumb at a right angle to each other so that the overall posture of the user's hand is still a right angle between the axis of the thumb and the axis of the phalange of the second row of the index finger. In this posture, the nail clippers still tend to move or drift out of position and must still be balanced against the nail for best results.